I am sitting in the kitchen of our Texas home on our last night here. Tomorrow, mid-afternoon, we head back to CA via car. We will arrive in time (God willing) for a full roster of my students on Thursday. The kitchen is quiet. Rachael came earlier and picked up the dogs to take to…

Today was the first day in almost 32 years that I haven’t spent Easter with at least one of my children. That’s a biggie for me, but it’s okay. Everyone is well and I am the one out of pocket, not them. We are in Texas working on the completion of our house project across…

Dear Rachael, I have been thinking of you all day since this is your birthday. Let me just say a few things about you that I know: 1) You are one of the nicest people I know. 2) You are smart. 3) You have an exceptional sense of humor. 4) You are one of the…

Today is Liz’s boyfriend, Ron’s, birthday. Ron and Liz met the first day of law school and have been pretty much joined at the hip since that first meeting. (Or so it seems from a mother’s perspective.) They survived that 2 year accelerated course, then studied for and took the bar together before heading out…

We have just arrived home after visiting our daughter, Rachael, in McKinney. Friday is her 23rd birthday, but she has to work so we celebrated this evening. Rachael and I both commemorated her birth by going to the Sprint store and getting new iPhones. I have had an android for the longest time and she…

I recently received a letter from The Provo Canyon Review letting me know that one of my flash fiction pieces had been accepted for publication. I was delighted, of course, and very pleased they had accepted “A Brother’s Gift,” a story I am especially fond of. Today I received my notification that the online version of…

I am sitting in our Texas home. The gas fire is bright orange in the old space heater and the outside temperature is heading down to 31 degrees tonight. The lights are low and the only sound I can hear is the traffic from the highway off in the distance. We’ve had a hectic day…

The following is my handout from my 1 1/2 hour workshop today at the Stories of the Heart Memoir Conference in Austin. I think it’s fairly self-explanatory. The conference was exceptional this year for me. I felt as if I took away some critical information related to writing and publishing. Hopefully, my workshop was helpful…

Ray and I are here in Austin, staying with my cousin, Lee, and his wife, Elaine. I am attending the “Stories of the Heart” national memoir conference where I will be presenting a workshop tomorrow morning. Ray is visiting with Lee, Elaine, their kids and our nieces and nephews who live here in Austin. (I…

We made it to Sherman early afternoon and now are enroute to Austin.  Ray has decided to join me on the Austin trip since we’ll be seeing family.  We’re arriving late so this is my blog post for the night.  I am going to take over driving in about 5 minutes. Happy trails, folks.  Glad…